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Posted on 06.26.08 by Nikhil @ 1:30 am
Remember the fanfare when Google announced that it was coming out with Android, its wireless OS? Well, maybe not so fast. It seem that Android’s system has been delayed and it could be year end or later before it actually comes out. As a result, T-Mobile USA reportedly won’t deliver its Android-powered phone until fourth quarter, Sprint and China Mobile will likely be delayed with their Android-powered phones until late 2008 or early 2009. The main point here is not so much thast its being delayed, but that Google didn’t realize just how tought the wireless business can be.As a journalist who covered many new, innovative companies for Forbes Magazine - during the early days of the Internet - I can tell you that so many aspiring companies came in to my office to tell me their big plans. And so many of them are no longer around today. Breaking into new businesses is tough.For Google, one of the big challenges is getting the OS to work across many different operating systems and handsets. Of course, Google isn’t some upstart company. But even big companies such as Disney, with Disney Mobile and ESPN with its Mobile ESPN ran into big problems. I wouldn’t underestimate Google yet - but I do think that the company didn’t quite realize the challenges it faced with it debuted Android. Filed under: Stock Watch and Applications and Infrastructure Comments: Comments Off |
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Posted on 11.27.07 by Nikhil @ 1:05 pm
Verizon Wireless (nyse: VZ), made an announcement this morning that could represent a turning point in wireless. The company said that starting at the end of 2008, it will allow its customers to use phones and software not sold by Verizon. Why would the company announce such a thing? Typically, the wireless carriers, concerned with protecting the value of their networks as well as the relationships they have with customers, have kept a tight control over the phones that they make available on their networks. Customers can only buy the phones made available by their carrier and they are restricted to the software loaded onto those phones. One reason: The fast growing wireless sector is being hit by new, innovative entrants. Google (nasdaq: GOOG), for instance, recently announced a plan to create an open platform for mobile phones. If Verizon did nothing, its business could, ultimately, be severely hampered. But Verizon is an astute company and is keenly aware of the market in which it operates and the threats that stand to attack its business plan. So Verizon has made a bold move and now says it will make its technical standards available to developers in the first part of 2008 and then open up its network at the end of the year so that consumers can buy phones and use software that is compatible with the network. To put this a bit more in perspective, all wireless carriers have recently been under pressure to open up their networks from regulators as well as from new competitors such as Google. But besides the pressure to open up networks, the move is also a good way for Verizon to increase traffic over its network. Increasingly, there are more devices that are being sold that are wirelessly enabled — from Internet tablets to digital cameras. Many of these are products that Verizon doesn’t now sell and could provide substantial revenues in the future. Another good reason for opening up its networks: If Verizon can get more software developers to create for it’s networks, that means that it can also sell more data plans – which is where wireless companies will ultimately be generating most of their revenues. Good news for Verizon. Filed under: Stock Watch and Infrastructure and News Comments: None |
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Posted on 03.13.07 by Nikhil @ 12:20 pm
A number of wireless Chinese stocks recently got hit with a triple whammy. Chinese companies with shares traded in the U.S. were hammered by the recent plunge in the Chinese market, the fall in the U.S. market and then, once again, by the recent actions of the Chinese government, which has been regulating the ways wireless content providers can market and sell their content. The situation has been so difficult that Tom Online (nasdaq: TOMO - news - people ), one of the biggest wireless portals in China, will soon be taken private by its parent company, Tom Group, so that its business can be restructured and its business strategy can be optimized without the pressures that face public companies. But while Tom goes private, there could now be some good opportunities for investors. One company that I think will reward investors this year is Beijing-based Hurray! Holdings (nasdaq: HRAY - news - people ). The company’s American Depository Shares, which now trade around $4.93, are down nearly 50% from the company’s 52-week high in April. Yet Hurray! is taking aggressive steps to revamp its business. Filed under: Stock Watch and Wireless Gaming and Applications and Cutting Edge Comments: Comments Off |
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Posted on 03.03.07 by Nikhil @ 4:19 pm
Shares of OmniVision Technologies have been hit hard, falling 49% over the past year. While the stock market correction contributed to the stock’s slide, OmniVision has lots of its own problems as well. I was once a fan of OmniVision Technologies (nasdaq: OVTI - news - people ), adding shares of the company to the Forbes Wireless Stock Watch Core Wireless Portfolio in 2005. Fortunately, I got out before the stock’s most recent fall. Back in 2005, OmniVision, which designs image sensors–silicon semiconductors that turn photons into electrons so that they can be processed, stored or displayed–made about 75% of revenues from selling its camera chips to developers of mobile phones. The company also made its chips available in a variety of other electronics, such as security cameras, Sony (nyse: SNE - news - people ) PlayStation games and automobiles–to provide a rear image of what’s behind the car (useful when moving in reverse). Filed under: Stock Watch and Components Comments: Comments Off |
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Posted on 02.21.07 by Nikhil @ 4:15 pm
Sometimes, when everything goes wrong, companies try to put on a happy face, releasing a flurry of news in the hopes of raising investor confidence. That could be what is going on at Openwave Systems (nasdaq: OPWV - news - people ), whose stock is down 60% over the past year. Just this month, Redwood City, Calif.-based Openwave (nasdaq: OPWV - news - people ) announced that it will pay $5 million to acquire WiderWeb, a British company that develops technology used to adapt Web content for mobile devices. Good news? Not for a while: Openwave says the acquisition will not have a material effect on its fiscal 2007 financial results. Filed under: Stock Watch and Applications Comments: Comments Off |
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Posted on 02.13.07 by Nikhil @ 5:12 pm
Last week, Polycom, a Pleasanton, Calif.-based manufacturer of video and audio conferencing systems, said it agreed to buy communications equipment company SpectraLink for $11.75 per share, or about $220 million cash. The purchase price represented a 33% premium to the stock’s closing price last Wednesday, when the deal was announced. It was exactly what shareholders of SpectraLink needed. But is it a good deal? Earlier this year, shares of SpectraLink (nasdaq: SLNK - news - people ) were on a tear. The company, which provides phones that work off a wireless local area network (WLAN)–a Wi-Fi network designed for the workplace–had recently acquired KIRK Telecom, a privately held Danish provider of wireless communications products. SpectraLink paid $62 million ($30 million in cash and $32 million in debt). In addition to selling its phones to big retailers like Home Depot (nyse: HD - news - people ), where salespeople can always be reachable no matter where they are located, the belief was that KIRK, which develops and markets wireless voice and data systems for corporate customers throughout the world, would be a big boost for SpectraLink, broadening its market share to England and Germany, among other countries. It also seemed that KIRK, which provided wireless voice networks based on the European system, DECT, would find growth in the U.S., since that particular technology is less expensive to deploy for small- and medium-sized businesses. Filed under: Stock Watch and Applications and Cutting Edge Comments: Comments Off |
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Posted on 02.07.07 by Nikhil @ 4:12 pm
Many investors fear Novatel Wireless. The company, which was supposed to ride the wireless broadband wave in 2006, instead ran into a number of problems. Its shares fell about 19% in 2006, hitting a low of $8.14 in November. But there is good news. The company is riding the demand for increased broadband wireless services; its developing new applications business is turning around; and the stock is beginning to rebound as well. I believe that this year, demand for Novatel’s products will grow and investors will be rewarded. To put Novatel’s (nasdaq: NVTL - news - people ) rebound into some perspective, let me quickly explain what happened over the past two years. No question, Novatel went through a difficult time in 2005 and early 2006. The company, which makes wireless PC card modems, reported disappointing earnings for the fourth quarter of 2005. Even so, the company ramped up its R&D spending to develop several technologies that would one day be embedded into laptops to provide high-speed connectivity rather than relying on add-on PC cards. Novatel took a charge of $2.3 million to write down its inventory of old 2.5G data cards. Filed under: Stock Watch and Infrastructure and Components and Cutting Edge Comments: Comments Off |
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Posted on 11.22.06 by Nikhil @ 1:08 pm
Fujitsu wants to get back into the wireless race in North America by being a major U.S. player in the race to build high speed wireless broadband WiMax networks. The Japanese company, which is a big manufacturer of cell phones and infrastructure equipment such as base stations, once developed analog handsets for the North American market only to sell out of that business about 12 years ago. The company felt that the U.S. market was highly competitive and that margins on cell phones were too low. Better to focus its efforts where it had the best relationships: in Asia, where it had strong partnerships with carriers such as Japan’s NTT DoCoMo (nyse: DCM - news - people ) cand KDDI. But now, Fujitsu wants back into the North American wireless market, and James Hintze, a senior vice president at Fujitsu Network Communications, says that WiMax technology will be the company’s ticket. WiMax (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) is a high capacity IP-based technology that can be deployed as a new network or as an overlay to existing 2G and 3G wireless technologies. It promises to be the fastest network yet, providing fixed and mobile broadband service and can deliver up to 40 megabits per second per channel up to 30 miles away from a base station. That’s enough bandwidth to support hundreds of business with T-1 speed connectivity and thousands of residences with DSL speed connectivity. Filed under: Stock Watch and Infrastructure Comments: Comments Off |
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Posted on 10.19.06 by Nikhil @ 4:05 pm
For wireless carriers, business is becoming increasingly complex. In addition to handling voice calls, the carriers are now faced with distributing games, ringtones and multimedia messaging. Even television is on its way. But one problem that the carriers still haven’t figured out is how to make sending and receiving e-mails from a cellphone easy. Now, there is a little-known company, Huntington Beach, Calif.-based Voice Genesis, that has come up with a product it calls Vemail. It could be the answer. WiMax is coming, and 3G networks are already being rolled out. Are you profiting from wireless broadband? Click here for analysis on undervalued wireless companies set to soar. Vemail, which is based on Qualcomm’s BREW platform, is currently used by 28 carriers in 50 million mobile phones, and it is remarkably simple. The idea is fast message review. E-mails come in and you read them. To respond quickly, you speak the response instead of trying to type a response using the tiny keys on a mobile phone. The system then records your voice and sends an e-mail to the recipient with a hyperlink. The recipient clicks on the hyperlink and hears the recording of your message. Please click here to read the rest of the story at Forbes.com Filed under: Stock Watch and Infrastructure and Cutting Edge Comments: Comments Off |
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Posted on 10.13.06 by Nikhil @ 4:26 pm
Qualcomm got a boost recently. The FCC had ruled that Qualcomm could not deploy its MediaFlo service (which allows broadcast quality TV on your cell phone) on Channel 55 in some areas because of potential interference with broadcasters that operate on Channel 54 and 56. This was a blow to Qualcomm, which owns the 700 Mhz band inteded for mobile TV use. Qualcomm filed a petition with the FCC to allow relief from certain interference protection rules. The FCC responded by specifying the permitted level of minimal interference. It also expalined how interference would be calculate from MediaFlo to televsion and DTV stations. This new ruling will hold until DTV transition ends on February 17, 2009–when the stations must move off those channels. You can get more details on this at Qualcomm’s site. Filed under: Stock Watch and Infrastructure and Cutting Edge Comments: None |
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